The infrastructure society relies on, such as bridges, buildings, dams, electric power transmission, and distribution systems, requires research and monitoring to address and improve its performance. These assessments are necessary not only to gauge daily stresses such as traffic loads and weather conditions, but also to monitor performance under more extreme conditions like earthquakes, wind storms, fires, and blast.
Large Structural Systems research focuses on developing innovative structural materials and systems, assessment of in-service conditions, sensing and data analytics, laboratory simulations, resilience quantification and assessment, and life-cycle reliability and performance. Particular strengths are transportation structures and laboratory simulation of hazard events.
Research areas include:
- Highway bridges under fatigue and other loading, and potential for failure
- Resilience to natural hazards and man-made hazards
- Laboratory simulation of natural hazard events
- Reliability and life-cycle management and engineering
- Resilience of interdependent infrastructure systems
- Measurement and evaluation, sensing systems, and mobile sensing
- Fluids-solids interactions in coastal and offshore engineering
